22 September 2009

Rainfall disaster in the Cape Verde Islands

Posted by Dave Petley

Cape Verde is an island state consisting of an archipelago of islands located in the North Atlantic 600 km from the coast of West Africa. It is a pretty poor country of about 500,000 people, which rarely makes the news. Over the weekend the islands were hit by very heavy rainfall, triggering extensive flooding and landslides. According to this article, at least three people appear to have been killed, and there has been extensive damage. The town of Covaoda on San Nicolau appears to have been particularly badly hit.

Thanks to Rebecca Sharples, who sent these images of the disaster to me. The situation, which as far as I know, has not been reported internationally, looks very serious: